Currently, broadband networks may be used to provide traditional telephony service over community antenna television (“CATV”) or other communications networks using coaxial cable (“coax”) or optical fiber cable. For example, ARRIS™ International, Inc. offers a telephony over cable product known as Cornerstone™, which incorporates linecards that provide an interface for connecting subscriber lines to the Cornerstone™ product, and hence, the rest of the network. Products, such as those in the Cornerstone™ line, may typically be used in more than one country.
However, different countries may have different network design specifications and/or operating requirements. For example, telephony networks in Germany typically require a ringing frequency of 25 Hz, whereas networks in neighboring France and Austria typically require a ringing frequency of 50 Hz. Thus, equipment to be used in different countries has to be configured for the network-operating environment in which it will be used. Accordingly, equipment hardware is often configured at the manufacturing plant or before installation, and custom software is shipped for a particular network's requirements.
Although configuring the line cards or, more generally, line interfaces before installation is acceptable from a technical performance standpoint alone, the cost of the telephony equipment is higher because of the customized nature of the manufacturing and shipping processes. In addition, for some network operators that may serve multiple countries, costs and inconvenience are increased because equipment configured for one country may not work in another country, and thus extra equipment must be ordered and stored. If an operator desires to have extra equipment in stock for network expansion and/or maintenance purposes, and the operator has a network in France and another in Germany, for example, twice as much hardware would have to bought and stored, or at the least, different software versions would have to be maintained and managed for the two different countries.
Therefore, there is a need for a method and system for manufacturing and operating network equipment that can be integrated into a variety of different countries without the need to manufacture the equipment differently for use in different countries.
Furthermore, there is a need for a method and system for easily configuring broadband network equipment that provides telephony service in different countries after the equipment has been installed in a network.